THE EFFECTS OF UNCERTAINTIES IN SOME ZONAL HARMONICS OF THE EARTH'S GRAVITY POTENTIAL ON SATELLITE POSITION DETECTION,
Abstract
An investigation was conducted to determine the effects of the omission or inclusion of some of the more important zonal harmonicof the earth's gravity potential, and the uncertainties in the coefficients of these harmonics, on satellite position prediction errors. The position errors which were studied are those which would result from the generation of an ephemeris based on a faulty or incomplete gravitational model. The nature of the propagation of the errors along the orbit, the magnitude of the errors to be expected, and the dependency of these errors on the initial elements of the orbit and on the location at which observations are made for prediction pur poses, are presented. Position prediction errors due to other causes such as atmosphere uncer tainty, are not investigated. The investigation is based on a first order analytical formulation of the problem of satellite motion about the asymmetric earth. In order to demonstrate the more salient features of the problem under in vestigation and to facilitate the mathematical analysis, the investigation is restricted to nearly circular, polar orbits. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 26, 1963
- Accession Number
- AD0415437
Entities
People
- P.t. Guttman
Organizations
- The Aerospace Corporation